Pandora's Box
by Laudine
Summary: From mid X2 into AU X3. Isabel returns when Xavier needs her most, only to see one of her comrades die, which sets off a series of events that no one thought would unfold. And why does she find herself so enthralled with the rough-around-the edges Logan?
1. Prelude: Pay the Piper

**Disclaimer: I do not own "X-Men," but Isabel Sayre and all other original characters are mine.**

**Pandora's Box**

**Prelude: Pay the Piper**

_But Lancelot mused a little space  
He said, "She has a lovely face;  
God in his mercy lend her grace,  
The Lady of Shalott."_

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

When William Stryker confronted the group of five, the three men and the two women, keeping him at bay with bows and arrows and swords, he wanted to laugh. What was this—a reenactment of a Shakespeare play? Had someone decided to play a sick joke on him?

And then he saw _her_.

His insides began to twist. He had watched her die, he had seen that body cut open for an autopsy and then had seen it buried himself. It couldn't be…it just couldn't…

Was she coming to take his soul to hell with her?

The same face, the same hair, the same slight tilt at the upper corner of the eyes. But when she opened her mouth, the voice…God help him, it _wasn't _her…

Or was it?

"Commander William Stryker?" she said, and one of the men, young looking with the eyes of an old man, stepped closer to her.

"I'm William Stryker," he volunteered. And then he felt it, the dense, heavy impact of air across his face. He felt something in his face snap, and there was blood in his mouth, and then he let out a shout of horror as he felt the sharp blade of a dagger at his throat.

He saw that the young-old man was holding the dagger at his throat. "Murderer," the man hissed in a strange yet familiar accent. He pushed the blade deeper into Stryker's throat. "Do you remember her? Do you remember what you did to her, how you killed her? You will pay for it! _You_ will die! You blood for hers!"

And then Stryker shuddered in realization. _Azaliz._

And so this…this was Kaherdin, her beloved, come across the sea and across the years to avenge her.

And the woman who had first spoken? She seemed too human to be one of them. And so he drew the conclusion. _Mutant_. Of their blood, though…

But dear God in heaven…

In his mind, seeing this one, it was almost as though he had never seen Azaliz die…


	2. Chapter 1: An Unexpected Reunion

**Disclaimer: I do not own "X-Men," but Isabel Sayre and all other original characters are mine.**

**Pandora's Box**

**Chapter One**: **An Unexpected Reunion**

_O pale and heavy-lidded woman, why is your cheek_

_Pale as the dead, and what are your eyes, afraid lest they speak?_

_And the woman answered me: I am pale as the dead,_

_For the dead have loved me, and I dream of the dead…_

-Arthur Symons

_October, 2003._

Kyle Gowan came to the door of the Institute in the rain, soaked to the skin; he had been so emotionally startled that he did not bring an umbrella, and Jean let him in. He picked up his suitcase and took off his shoes; she made a face at the strange squelching sound that his socks made on the floor, and he took those off, too.

"Has she been here?" he asked shakily as he took off his socks and followed Jean up the stairs to a guest bedroom where he could shower and change. "Tell me, Jean. We might be divorced, but that doesn't mean I don't still care."

Jean's lips thinned as she opened the door to a guest bedroom. Kyle Gowan, husband of the year. He was lucky that Scott hadn't answered the door; Scott would have kicked Kyle's ass. "She hasn't been here, and I'm not sure if Professor Xavier would disclose her location." She glanced at him as he opened his suitcase. "You haven't filed a missing person's report, have you?"

"Not yet," he replied. "I thought I'd come here first, see if she'd come to you. You're like part of her family, after all. I tried calling her grandma in France and Véronique just cussed me out in French and hung up on me."

_Good for Véronique,_ Jean thought. "I hear you're engaged to Ashley. Congratulations," she said evenly.

"So Isabel told you?" Kyle said, turning to face her. "God, Jean, you know how it is…She and I got married too young, and then she lost the baby, and…"

"And then you screwed one of her friends," Jean finished for him, shoving the image she had gathered from his mind away from her own in disgust. "You're lucky Scott or Hank didn't answer the door…or even Ororo. You would have gotten an earful."

He shrugged. "Maybe I do deserve it, but she wasn't perfect. You know how she is, Jean…demanding, shrill, high maintenance. I couldn't deal with it."

"Of course you couldn't." Jean was tired of hearing the excuses. She remembered going to visit Isabel in the hospital after the miscarriage. Isabel, her violet blue eyes ringed with violet shadows, had whispered her fears to Jean: she thought that Kyle was screwing around with Ashley Danziger. Jean had simply brushed a lock of lank mahogany-hued hair out of Isabel's pale, elfin face, and left her to Professor Xavier. Caitlin Sprague, who had known Isabel since childhood, who had gone to University of Chicago with Isabel, who had made money tutoring the younger students at the Institute during the summers, had approached Jean. They had both known, even if Caitlin was a normal human.

"I'll see if Professor Xavier is available," she told Kyle, leaving him to clean himself up. She telepathically let the Professor know that Kyle had just arrived on their doorstep, and she heard an audible sigh ring through her head.

_Very well then. I'll deal with him after lunch. _

_Do you know where she is?_

A brief silence. _Jean, you know that I am the soul of discretion. Isabel is safe, and she is in France, just not where you would expect her to be. She did, however, leave a key here to her apartment in Paris in case you and Scott decided to go._

_What will you tell Kyle?_

_What I have always told him; he and Isabel are now divorced, and that he should not come to this school again. _

--------------

Professor Xavier offered Kyle some coffee, which Kyle declined. "Forgive the delay," Professor Xavier told Kyle. "Two of my teachers are at a lecture in San Francisco about bettering our methods, and so that just leaves Dr. Grey and myself. You are here about Isabel, Kyle?"

"Yes." Kyle leaned forward. "She's gone missing. She just left Chicago months ago and she hasn't been back since. I tried her condo, I tried her grandmother in France…"

"So I hear," Professor Xavier interrupted gently. He sipped at his coffee and inhaled deeply through his nose. He did not want to have to do this, but it would have to be done. It was not an ethical thing in his mind to use his abilities to compel normal people to follow his will, but there were times when the situation called for it, and the situation definitely called for it in this case. The safety of his students and keeping the secret of the school were both of his top priorities; moreover, Isabel had begged him not to tell Kyle or anyone else of her whereabouts, only that she was safe and that she would return when she was ready. "Kyle, you must understand that Isabel…well, she was absolutely heartbroken when she lost the baby, and then to find that you hadn't been faithful certainly didn't help matters. She is in France—that I _will_ tell you—but as for anything else, I can't disclose that."

"Her grandmother knows, too, doesn't she?" Kyle said, sitting back in his chair and knitting his brows. Isabel had always said he was a metrosexual and got them waxed, and now Professor Xavier could see that for himself. "You know Véronique always kept secrets, Professor. I think that's the thing she's best at. Like the thing with Isabel's dad…"

_Secrets._ Charles sighed. Now would be the time. He inhaled and exhaled once more and spoke gently to Kyle, both audibly and telepathically.

"Kyle."

"What, Professor?" Kyle demanded, clearly agitated at being interrupted.

"It's time that you left us. And you must never return. You must never contact Isabel, her family, her friends, or us again."

Kyle's face became expressionless, calm, as he nodded slowly like an automaton in understanding.

"You will never speak of the school, and once you leave this room, you will pack your things, call a cab, and leave immediately. Do you understand?"

Another automatic, mesmerized nod.

"Very well, then." Charles severed the connection with Kyle's mind, then smiled brightly and returned to the previous subject of their conversation as though nothing had happened. "It was good seeing you, Kyle, and I hope that you are happy."

Kyle stood up and gazed down at the professor in surprise as he shook Kyle's hand. "Thanks."

"I can only wish you the best," Charles went on.

"Thank you, Professor. I hope everything goes well for you—and Isabel—too…" Kyle went upstairs just as he had been prodded.

Jean watched from the window of Professor Xavier's study as the cab drove down the private driveway, away from the school and away from them. "So you got rid of him? Permanently?"

Professor Xavier shrugged. "Most likely. I didn't like having to do it, but…" He turned to her and smiled gravely. "Sometimes things simply need to be done, whether we like it or not. I can't have Kyle Gowan mentioning the Institute offhand in conversations. It could bring the wrong type of attention to us."

"She _is_ all right, though?" Jean persisted. "You talk to her?"

"Once or twice weekly." Jean followed as he wheeled his way down the hall. "It has been difficult for her, Jean, and it finally took her divorce from Kyle for Véronique and me to convince her that she needed some time away. She will be back, though, when she is ready."

"You're certain?"

"Positive."

Jean smiled softly. "Next time you talk to her, tell her I miss her and ask her to hurry up and come back."

-------------

She sat on the stone bench listening to the nightingales sing, and Charles glanced up at the soft violet of the sky; he could smell violets and snowdrops and countless other flowers wafting on the evening breeze, and he turned to face her once more as she wove herself a garland out of violets and snowdrops. No wonder those two scents assailed him so, he thought, and his gaze traveled up from small, nimble hands to a piquant, heart-shaped face whose brows were knitted together in concentration. She completed the garland and showed him her handiwork, which he smiled at. She giggled and placed it upon her head, standing up and squaring her shoulders and tipping her nose up in the air.

"Do I make a convincing queen?" she asked him.

"You do," he conceded, and she sat down once more and straightened the skirt of her gown—lavender, he noticed. Why, when he spoke with Isabel, did she have to insist on meeting in the twilight realm, one of the ones in between? He could just have easily spoken with her on the astral plane, except—and there was that "except" again—she had to be someplace where she felt she could be in as much control as he could, and for her, that was the twilight realm.

"I can't believe Kyle came back," she sniffed, regarding her nails and then turning her dark blue gaze to Professor Xavier. "You told him to leave, didn't you?"

"He won't be returning," Professor Xavier replied. He watched as she stood up once more and sauntered to a moss-covered statue of a knight in prayer. "But Jean wants to know when you will be returning."

"Jean, Jean, the roses are red," Isabel chanted, her eyes narrowing as she twirled a burnished lock of mahogany hair about her index finger. "Jean would do best to keep her heart where it is instead of letting it wander," she commented dryly.

Charles did not know when she meant by that. He wheeled himself toward her, and he watched as she stood perfectly still with eyes closed, and the songs of the nightingales grew louder. Then she turned to face him, her face perfectly composed, and replied, "It will be a year and a day. Can you wait, Professor?"

"I can wait. Some of the students miss you, though."

"Oh, yes. Jubilee, and Kitty, and St. John, and Bobby. They can wait, can't they?" She knelt down and placed her hands on the arm of his wheelchair.

"You know they can, Isabel. But they still miss you."

"I miss _them_, and all of you, especially you, dear, dear Professor!" She placed her head in his lap like a child. "But it is so lovely here. I don't want to leave…"

Surely her time away had driven her almost mad, he thought. He didn't know what to make of what she was saying; perhaps it was a result of her intuition, no doubt sharper now even after a month. He stroked her hair and glanced at the wild garden about him. A white hind watched over her white fawn as they made a meal over hostas. This made him shrink inwardly; had Isabel decided to remain there, to remain with them? Or was this simply a manifestation of the twilight realm?

"The stars sing," she whispered. "Magneto will move. You must be ready. I am sorry I can't be there, but the others…they must come into their own when the time is right. Melior has seen this."

"Melior?"

"The Queen." Isabel gazed up at him, her eyes focused and sharp. "A year and a day. Will you wait? Will _they _wait?"

"They will have to wait," he replied.

"I am glad then. Take heart, Professor—we will prevail. We always do." And with a maudlin smile she kissed him on the cheek, and then the image of the twilight garden began to shimmer, and soon he found himself in Cerebro's chamber, the damp of her kiss still fresh on his cheek.

--------------

_She could hear her own screams as she was pierced with the sharp implements. Not of silver, but of something else, something more potent. Her body could tolerate silver, but not with this other metal; with this other metal, the silver burned._

_"Enough." She could hear Stryker's voice reverberate throughout the room, and Dr. Cornelius made the motion with his hand._

_"She still glows in the moonlight," Cornelius murmured. "I don't understand…"_

_"What is there to understand?" Stryker came to her side; he passed a hand over her mahogany-hued hair, tinged red with the blood that had splattered and sprayed from the presently healing wounds. "Can we get more of them? Surely you can clinch a deal…"_

_"You know I can't—not with the French. You know how they are. But in England…"_

_Stryker nodded. "The British have always been easier to persuade to our way of thinking. The Forest of Arden, isn't it?"_

_Cornelius shrugged._

_"I'll make the call to Downing Street later, when it's morning their time. We can have a contingent there by the end of this week if we're lucky. No more dealing with the whims of the French." A snicker. Stryker stroked her alabaster forehead. "Comment ça va, Azaliz?"_

_She strained against her bonds and hawked up enough from her dry throat to spit at him, and then she dealt him as many curses as she could in her old Breton tongue. He wiped the spittle from his cheek and struck her in anger._

_"You stupid little bitch! You're lucky we haven't killed you or left you to the ferals. You would like that, wouldn't you, to be left to one of them as a plaything?"_

_She whimpered, turning her pale face away from his. She remained slack and limp, like a ragdoll, as they loosed her bonds and carried her to her cell, as they placed her on her bed, and when they were gone, helpless tears trickled down her cheeks._

_Her brother had warned her not to wander beyond the Veil during the day, but she had not heeded it. Her hound Bise had gone missing, and she had wandered into the forêt de Paimpont to see if Bise has wandered beyond the Veil as well. And that was when she had seen them, the soldiers. She had begun to run, and then she tripped on the downed branch, her legs tangling in her skirts. She felt the net on her and heard her own screams as they carried her away, and then they injected something into her, something that made her sleep as she heard a hound barking…_

_She had wakened here, in this cell, and they had poked and prodded at her, as they submitted her to all sorts of different tests. She would spend her nights weeping for Kaherdin, wondering if he and her brother were looking for her, wondering if Kaherdin remained constant to her. Hopefully they did not believe she had run away from marriage to him; she loved Kaherdin, she had loved him ever since she could remember. _

_"Kaherdin," she whispered now. "Kaherdin…" And she began to sob, not only from her physical pain, but for the pain in her heart, too._

--------------

Isabel rose from her bed and went into the anteroom where he sat waiting. Kaherdin rose when she entered and bowed to acknowledge her; she bowed as well and sat down in one of the chairs and poured herself some water.

"And what did you see?" he asked her.

She took a sip of the cool water, tossing her head slightly as though to shake the effects of the lavender and the mugwort from her mind. "Someone did something to her. There were injections of some sort, and they pierced her with silver and adamantium…She wept for you every night she was there, Kaherdin. I wasn't able to get anything more, I'm sorry."

"It's enough for now." Kaherdin pinched the bridge of his nose with the index finger and thumb of his right hand. "We know that she was taken against her will. That is quite a lot. But is she still alive?"

Isabel bit her lips. "I don't know. The vision didn't go any further."

"Names? Perhaps that would help us?"

She closed her eyes to try and remember. "Cornelius and Stryker. And there was talk of calling the English Prime Minister to see if they could use the Forest of Arden. Apparently they were tired of dealing with the French."

"Can you ask your Professor about the names?" Kaherdin persisted, glaring down at his tunic. Isabel inhaled.

"I'll try. But it doesn't guarantee anything. He might be better able to use his own connections and his own abilities to come up with something."

Kaherdin nodded. "Thank you then, Isabel. It has certainly helped. I will come to you if I need anything more." He rose and bowed once more. "Good night, Isabel."

"Good night, Kaherdin," she replied, watching him as he left her rooms. He was so tormented by the long-ago disappearance of his fiancée. It was said throughout Brocéliande that he had loved her all of his days and that his heart had not belonged to another. Clearly, he still hoped. But the reality was that she was most likely dead. Adamantium was known for being poisonous, toxic to normal humans and mutants. Being both human and Fae, Azaliz might have lasted some time, but she would no doubt have perished if it were laced with silver and injected inside of her like some of Isabel's visions had shown.

Isabel didn't want to think further on it. It gave her a headache. They had begun to whisper when she had first arrived, had stared at her as her cousins had led her throughout the enclave and introduced her to those who inhabited it. She had asked Equitan why they were whispering, and he had told her it was nothing, but still the warning flickered at the back of her mind, and when she was presented to the King and the Queen, she saw how the Queen paled, and then she knew.

The Queen had brought her a likeness of Azaliz, and Isabel had kept it in a drawer of her dressing table. From time to time, as she did now, she would sit in front of her mirror with the picture propped up in front of her, tracing her features and comparing them to Azaliz's. The same violet blue eyes, the same mahogany-hued hair. The same heart-shaped face and rétroussé nose, the same wide, heavy-lidded eyes with the slight upward tilt at the outer corners, the same sharp cheekbones under chubby cheeks. Equitan had laughed and said simply that sometimes human facial structures repeated themselves, and with her ancestors perhaps being related to Kaherdin's and Azaliz's family as well, so Azaliz's face had repeated in hers. But Isabel had been born years after Azaliz's disappearance, a good seven years. Wouldn't that be too soon for Azaliz's face to be repeated, bone by bone, in Isabel's? And there had always been some elements of her father's features in her face, and as far as she remembered, her father had been as WASP-y as they could come.

She made some chamomile tea with the fresh flowers and leaves gathered from the Queen's garden to calm her nerves.

But then when she heard him calling her, she put it aside until later.

-----------

She could not find him. For all of her searching, she could not find him. She wandered through the twilight garden until she came to the edge of it, until she came to the gate that barred her from the silvers and blacks of the astral plane. The sound had come from here; she had been certain of it.

"Isabel."

"Professor." She crouched down in front of the gate, and she could see his figure in front of her behind the gate, transparent, standing erect, pained somehow. "What has happened to you?"

"Magneto has moved as your Queen predicted," he explained to her. "Will my X-Men succeed? Will they stop Magneto's plan from taking shape?"

She closed her eyes and concentrated as Melior had taught her. She could see the figures fighting, the girl bound to the machine, which had somehow been transported to the top of the Statue of Liberty. A fitting place. Magneto always did have a flare for the dramatic and for the allegorical. Did he find such things amusing when he put others' lives in danger?

"Isabel. Your mind wanders. Focus," Professor Xavier ordered crisply.

She tried, then shook her head. "It's difficult to say, Professor. I'm sure they will, but it's so hard to see what might happen as it unfolds."

"And so we wait," he murmured.

"We wait." She glanced up at him through the diamond bars of the gate. "And why are you here?"

"Someone has…tampered with something. My physical body is unconscious, in a coma. And that is why I called to you, for help or for company or for something…"

She nodded. She had always been able to spend such moments in quiet with him, not with incessant buzzing of the mind had she been a telepath. He had tried to help her to channel and harness her intuitive abilities, but his efforts had come to almost nothing, and that was why she had come here, to learn. But he still treated her as one of his students, urging her to learn, pushing her to excel. That was how he had always been with so many of them. Teacher, mentor, father.

They remained in silence for some moments, and then she asked him, "Professor, do you believe in souls returning from the dead?"

His brow wrinkled. "As in ghosts or spirits?"

"No. As in reincarnation."

"I can't say for sure. I've seen some evidence, read of it, but there are so many other explanations for it. You should know that there are thousands of variations of psychic and empathic powers throughout the world."

"True."

"Why do you ask?"

"I…" To tell or not to tell? "I'll explain soon. I was just curious. It has to do with some of the work I am doing with Melior," she explained quickly.

"Of course," he said incredulously. He always knew when she was lying or stretching the truth to just short of a lie, or omitting some important detail.

She remained silent and still with him, listening to the cicadas and the nightingales, watching as the fireflies drifted through the air. She had always been able to come here ever since her grandmother had shown her; she had always come here to see the visions and then left to interpret. Not even Charles had been able to access this place until she had shown him. Still she could not get over how beautiful it was, how different it seemed each time she came here, as though it bent and folded to her will. Her grandmother had always said that the twilight world bent according to the will of whoever occupied it, that it manifested itself differently according to the wills of those who were able to access it.

They remained this way for some time, and she could see the battle unfolding as he shared the vision with her in his mind. Even during the darkest moments she took heart that they would win. And after they had won, he reached through the iron bars of the gate and squeezed her hand. "I must go," he said. "Will I see you soon?"

She smiled softly. "Oh, Professor, of course you will," she replied, and she watched him fade away to return to his body.

-----------

She was playing backgammon with Equitan some weeks later when he noticed the tension in her face. He made a move out of turn, and when he found that she did not notice it, he leaned back in his chair and gazed at her sideways. "You are pulling faces, cousin—pursing your lips and knitting your brows like this." And he showed her, exaggerating it. She let out a laugh and playfully sent a current of air to strike him in the elbow, which took him off balance.

"It was Kyle, actually, Equitan," she told him soberly once he had situated himself in his chair. "It's difficult for me to understand why he came to the school when I told him I was leaving for France. To think that he came to the school unannounced…Some of the students are very frightened of normal human adults because of past torments, and I am glad Professor Xavier was there to handle the situation."

"The school is protected." He waited while she made her move. "Would you know if it was being attacked?"

"I don't know. Professor Xavier is a very strong telepath, and he has no difficulty entering the twilight world now since I granted him access." She furrowed her brows. "I imagine he'd contact me if he was in danger."

"And you'd go right to him?" Equitan replied. "Your turn."

She nodded. "I would go straight to him, or to the mansion, or wherever…"

"Alone?"

"If I had to."

"You wouldn't," Equitan said, laughing.

She sat back and glared. "What makes you think that I wouldn't go to him?" she seethed.

He laughed. "No, cousin, you _would_ go to him, but you wouldn't go alone."

"What do you mean?"

He laughed and made his final move, thereby winning the game. "Because, my pretty pink, there are those of us here who would never let you run headlong into danger. Kaherdin, cousin Trifine, and I would go with you."

And many months later Equitan would keep his promise.


	3. Chapter 2: A Cry in the Dark

**Disclaimer: I do not own "X-Men," but Isabel Sayre and all original characters are mine.**

**Author's Note: This is seriously AU after the middle of X2 and completely veers into another version of X3. **

**Pandora's Box**

**Chapter 2: A Cry in the Dark**

_Come to me in the silence of the night;  
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;  
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright  
As sunlight on a stream;  
Come back in tears…_

-Christina Georgina Rossetti

_April, 2004._

"It's been over a year," Jean said to Professor Xavier as she watched Scott pull the van around so that they could take some of the students with them on a field trip to the natural history museum in the city. "When did she say she'd come back?"

"A year and a day," Professor Xavier replied.

"Has she changed much?"

He shook his head. "Was she ever the same after she miscarried and after she divorced Kyle?"

Jean could not disagree with that. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen, and that it concerned Isabel, the Professor, all of them, even Logan. She had been kept awake nights, and she would sometimes awake from terrible nightmares screaming, her face feverish. She could never tell Scott what the dreams were about. He would grow too concerned and neglect his duties fawning over her.

She wished Isabel were here so that they could at least compare notes.

"He's coming back, you know," Professor Xavier said abruptly.

"Who is?" she said, turning to face him, startled from her reverie.

"Logan."

"Oh. Well, that will be good."

Logan. He had asked about Isabel before he had left, his finger lingering on the elfin face as he gazed down at the picture of Storm, Jean, and Isabel at her college graduation party, nursing assorted glasses of wine and showing off the silver Tiffany pendant they had bought her with a cursive "I" engraved in it. That was just a few months before Susanne Sayre succumbed to Lou Gehrig's disease…

"Who's the brunette with the piggy nose and the crooked mouth?" he had queried rudely.

Jean had snatched the picture away, shivering in delight a little bit as her hand brushed his. "That's Isabel Sayre. She was a teacher here up until about two years ago. She's in France now, and she'll be back soon…"

"Why is she in France? Rehab?"

"No, she has family there. She's been through a lot in the past year or so."

"Rehab," Logan had repeated definitively.

Jean let it be. She wasn't going to argue with Logan and she found herself to be quite relieved when he left for Canada the next morning. The last few months had been wonderful; Scott had proposed to her, and they had begun to plan the wedding. She intended to have one of her best friends from college and medical school stand in as her maid of honor and Isabel and Ororo as bridesmaids. It had been difficult for Jean and Emily to pick out a dress in Isabel's size, but Jean did her best to guess seeing as Isabel had maintained a consistency in size at least.

Scott entered the Professor's study with his winning J. Crew model grin. "Are you ready?" he asked her, and she knew his eyes were roving over her, and she telepathically admonished him to keep his amorous thoughts to himself until later.

"Ready," she said, smiling, crossing the room to interlink his fingers in his as he led her to the van outside. And when the sun caught the facets of her diamond, causing it to sparkle like a prism, she marveled at the tiny little rainbows it made against their joined fingers, and how lovely it was, and how glad she was she had chosen _him_.

------------

"I'm telling you, Kaherdin, I can't access her memories anymore," Isabel insisted, sipping at freshly made chamomile tea to dull her headache.

"What do you see?" he demanded, rubbing a marble-perfect hand over his neatly trimmed beard.

That was the caveat. She rubbed her fingertips upon her temples, trying to ward off the throbbing.

"I see fire," she answered. "She shows me fire."

"Fire." His forehead wrinkled in deep thought. "Did she die in a fire?"

"No." Isabel inhaled. "I don't know how she died yet. She won't talk about it. She won't show me, either. Instead she shows me fire." _And makes me awaken in a fever and sweat._

He drummed his fingernails on the table. "Very well then. Have a restful evening, madam." And he bowed out of her room with the grace of a zephyr.

It was disconcerting, those dreams, staring at her mirror reflection, listening to the voice that was higher pitched than hers, walking through what she supposed to be some sort of manifestation of the twilight world, underneath willows and alongside ghostly white lilies and poppies. When Azaliz spoke, her lips did not move; instead, it was like a telepathic conversation with Jean or Professor Xavier, and soon they were standing on a bluff overlooking a vale of some kind, and then she saw it.

The bird. Fire. Jean.

_Is this a warning of something that might come to pass?_ Isabel had asked her.

_No, it is already happening, now, even as we speak, even as you sleep. You are needed. You will have to go._

_And you?_

_Take heart, little face. I will be fine; nothing can harm me now. But you…_ Here her indigo-hued eyes wavered. _They will need you after, to pick up the pieces and to help sort through them. They will be terrified. You will be among the brave ones._

_And Kaherdin?_

_Kaherdin must live his life. It is as though he is a dead man. _

_And you will remain…to help me until I no longer need you?_

_I will remain until I am no longer needed._

_And how long will that be?_

A tilt of the head, a lilting laugh. _Who can say for sure? We will know when the time comes._

She took solace in the libraries in the recesses of the palace that afternoon. The Queen, Melior, who was married to King Gradlon, Azaliz's brother, came upon her as she studied the different manuscripts, codices, and scrolls that littered the archives, kept perfectly cool and dry with the aid of magic. Isabel marveled at the feeling of the parchment underneath her sensitive fingers, at the beauty of the calligraphy of the manuscripts, which were handwritten and hand illustrated. The bright jewel tones of the pictures in the manuscripts seemed so real that she wished to reach out and touch them, yet she knew that they were simply contrived from the skilled hands of Fae craftsmen.

She told the Queen of her visions and asked about the Phoenix, and here Melior led her to a lesser known part of the library where there lay a casket of oak. From her chatelaine she drew a silver key and unlocked the casket, and she produced a large book from it. "This should tell of what we Fae and Half Bloods know of the Phoenix Force," she explained. "It was made by one of the descendants of the Rhymer; their line was affected most by this creature."

The manuscript was not in Breton or old or modern French, but in English, and it told of a Goddess thrown from the skies in fire, a lovely, celestial being who bemoaned her fate. She found her way to England and the Forest of Arden, during the reign of Caelia and her human consort Thomas the Rhymer, who had the gift of Sight. She had appeared to them in the form of a red-headed woman, shining with the orange-white halo of heat and fire that radiated from her. She told them her story; she, a primal force—what the Fae at the time called a Goddess—had travelled the starry heavens until she had somehow fallen and crashed into Earth. The Queen was charmed by her and touched by her story, and despite her husband's warnings, she allowed the Phoenix to remain in the Forest of Arden. Thomas the Rhymer had advised his wife to conduct the Phoenix to the Three Unnamed Countries of Faerie for sanctuary, but he abided by his wife's decision as she was Queen. When the Phoenix began to tamper with the mind of their youngest daughter, and began to weave her spirit in with the girl's developing Fae abilities, the Queen was forced to banish her from Arden.

In Brocéliande, they had heard the tale and had followed and chronicled any of the activities that could be attributed to the Phoenix, but there was never any way to be sure. When mutants began to spring up throughout the world like unwanted weeds, she was drawn to the psychic mutants, particularly the females. It was like an imprint on their minds, Isabel reasoned. She would sneak in during the child's early years, remain for a short amount of time, and then leave, but a small part of her essence would remain. And that would make it easy for her to find her prospective host should she find the victim acceptable for possession.

Was this along the lines of what could happen to Jean?

"May I take this book?" Isabel asked Melior. "I would like to show it to someone…"

Melior closed the book and put it back in the casket, then locked it with the key. "There is another copy in your family's library. Linotte des Chelles had one made when she left Brocéliande with Brioc and returned to her house near Saint-Malo. Perhaps you could use that one?"

Isabel left Brocéliande and returned after a week with the book in hand. She would show it to Professor Xavier when she returned.

------------

When the message came to Charles that Magneto needed to speak with him, Charles felt a sense of urgency. Magneto had seemed frightened and agitated during the course of the call, and Scott volunteered to go with Professor Xavier because of Magneto's state of mind. As Scott drove the van to the prison, Professor Xavier checked his messages on hid Blackberry and also enjoyed a brief chat with Henry McCoy via text message from Washington, D.C. Apparently some teleporting mutant had attacked President McKenna, and Hank was working overtime to ensure that no adverse action would be taken against mutants. Charles had tracked the mutant to Boston, picked him out in the strange lights and whispers of mutant thought waves that Cerebro had shown him, and he had sent Storm and Jean Grey to collect the mutant, a man called Nightcrawler. Logan had returned from a trip to the Alkali Lake facility in Canada with no more answers than he had to begin with; apparently he had happened upon a burned-out husk of a laboratory that stirred some memories, but not many. He had left Logan in charge of the students; with Bobby, St. John, Rogue, Kitty, and Piotr showing great capability for helping him out, Professor Xavier was not at all worried, as they should be back to the mansion soon.

Warren Worthington sent him a picture of the beach in Tahiti; Scott and Jean were considering honeymooning there, but they were also thinking Paris for a week and using Isabel's apartment there. Knowing Jean, Paris would win out. They could go to beaches any time, but Paris was something to be seen and savored, and one of the most romantic cities in the world. And it would be less expensive to use Isabel's apartment and buy food and cook and eat in most of the time.

He checked his calendar. A year and a day. Isabel's return…

He had told Logan about Isabel over a private lunch earlier in the day, had explained that she _was not_ in rehab. The conversation had begun, rather ironically with, "So tell me, Logan, do you believe in fairies?" Logan had not been amused.

Charles did not have an inkling of what would happen when they reached Magneto's plastic prison. He had not thought that his old friend would be incapacitated, or that they would be able to subdue Scott. As they injected him with some kind of drug to dampen his telepathy, Charles etched it all into his subconscious: a struggling Scott, Magneto's apology, and then the cold face of William Stryker and his ironic greeting. As his eyelids began to fall as though weighted with lead, he sent the call, through the visions and portents and dreams that created the twilight world, through the dimensional bending and folding that hid the Borderlands, so that it would be heard and heeded, for the year had passed, and the day was almost over…

_Isabel. Come quickly. I need you. Danger…the Institute. All in danger…_

-------------

_Isabel. Come quickly. I need you. Danger…the Institute. All in danger…_

She awakened from her sleep with a shrill scream, the visions swirling through her mind before she became coherent once more. Equitan was already in her room, and he sat on the edge of her bed, and when he asked her about what she had dreamed, she told him.

"The Queen roused me when she saw it. It rippled throughout the twilight realm." He watched as she rose from her bed and combed out her hair with trembling fingers. "And you will go to him?"

"Of course."

"I am coming with you, and I will awake Milun and Trifine…and Kaherdin. No doubt he will want to aid us, too." He watched as she went to her clothespress to get some of her clothes out, and as she took out her X-Men leathers and the saber and épéé she had put aside a year ago. She took out her aqua-colored shoulderbag and tucked the black leather costume into it, then she went for her wallet and passport and a hairbrush and threw those in, too, along with a change of underwear and a toothbrush and toothpaste. "Or else…you could go on ahead. Once you have a location, you could send for us. Would it be better that way?"

"It would be." She glanced down at her saber and épée. "I wonder if I should bring these…"

"Perhaps it would be better if I brought them to you. They would be too conspicuous," he offered, and she nodded in agreement.

"I'll leave within the hour." She turned to him. "And I'll need those elf bolts when you come."

He nodded quickly, and she quickly bathed and dressed and blew warm air onto her hair to dry it, and then applied some light makeup. She zipped her makeup bag and put that in too, then swayed as her line of sight clouded, as the images bombarded her mind. Instinctively she thrust her hands out to break her fall, yet the sting of soft palms hitting the stone floor did not bring her back to reality.

There were soldiers at the school. Lights and stun guns and actual automatic guns and children being kidnapped, and the man, the name…

_Stryker._

_It's been fifteen years…_

_Do you remember my son, Charles? He is dead, dead long ago. All of you are…_

And then Azaliz. _Yes, yes, that is him! He is the one who killed me, who tortured me, who pains me still. He killed others, and he wounded others, and they suffer so. He must die, Isabel, by our hand. It is only right…_

_By our hand? By whose hand?_

_By Faerie hand. It is written that one who kills a Fae in cold blood will in turn meet the same fate. Don't you see? Don't you see?_

The wall of ice. Escape through the passages in the house.

Boston.

"Boston!" she exclaimed. And then, running into the hallway, she ordered the approaching quartet, "Boston! We'll go to Boston…"

-------------

The Gates were the way the Fae traveled, physical bodies and all, through the twilight realm and some of the other different levels of reality to reach their destination in Boston. One only had to focus, and so Isabel focused on Boston. She did not think that they would end up in the backyard of Bobby Drake's house, and Isabel heard Kaherdin swear in Breton as she surveyed their surroundings. But then Isabel saw Scott's car parked in the street, and she let out a little laugh of joy. She was here…

She inhaled and dissipated into a silvery vapor and threaded her way through the air ducts and reappeared in the kitchen, and she gathered some air into her palm and packed it, making it denser and hotter. She did not think that he would grab her from behind and hold daggers to her throat. She screeched in surprise and dropped the ball, and the ball of hot air ricocheted about the room until it began to unfold and then returned to its previous state.

"Who the hell're you?" a deep, gravelly voice demanded, breath hot and damp against her ear. She set her teeth and brought her fist up to hit him behind her in the nose. She dissipated when let go of her and swore, his hands momentarily holding his nose as the blood trickled out.

"Putain," she muttered, wincing at how her fingers throbbed after the impact. And she watched as the nose healed by itself…quite well…

She heard the sound of feet scrambling down the stairs, and then Bobby Drake entered the room and gasped. "Ms. Sayre!"

"Nice to see you know her, Bobby," the scruffy-looking mutant snapped out. "So I asked you who you were. You gonna answer the question?"

_Fifteen years…_ Her eyes widened. Did Stryker have something to do with him too? Azaliz had pointed in the vision when she had rambled on about those who suffered so…

"Why're you looking at me like that? Why…" He stopped and sniffed the air. Honey sweet. "What the hell _are_ you?"

"She's a mutant, Logan, just like us," St. John Allardyce snickered, coming into the kitchen from the living room and stopping. "She's good."

"Logan?" Isabel echoed, tilting her head as the brunette teenager who had entered the kitchen with Bobby went to get a plastic baggie for him to put some ice in. "So that's what they call you? When did Professor Xavier hire _you_?"

"I don't exactly work at the school." He surveyed her as she pressed the baggie to her left hand. "It kind of fell into my lap."

"Oh," Isabel intoned.

"How did you find us, anyhow?" Bobby asked Isabel. "Oh, sorry—this, this is Rogue. Rogue, this is Miss—Ms. Sayre. She was a teacher at the school."

"Ms.?" Logan repeated with a snort of laughter.

"Logan!" Rogue sighed. And then, "Like Bobby asked, how'd ya find us?"

Isabel went to sit down on the couch. "Professor Xavier sent me a vision." She glanced up at them. The man didn't seem to believe her. "I saw everything—how you escaped, the wall of ice, everything."

"What else did you see?" Rogue whispered, sitting down beside her.

"I heard a name. Stryker. Does that remind anyone of anything?"

If it did remind anyone of anything, they did not give it away. Isabel sighed.

"She's good, Logan," Rogue said. "If Bobby says so, then Ah believe him."

Logan shook his head and turned away from them.

But then things grew worse.

Bobby's parents and brother came home.

-----------

The Drakes seemed nice enough, but apparently they didn't know about Bobby being a mutant, or that the rest of them were mutants, for that matter. "I teach French," Isabel smiled winsomely, keeping up the façade of being the dutiful chaperone. "My mother was French. Actually, I just got back from Brittany…"

Logan stated that he taught art. Isabel suppressed a snicker. The man probably couldn't tell Impressionism from Expressionism.

"We need to go. Now," he said abruptly, and Isabel gave him a dirty look. Clearly he was the rudest person she had ever run into…

They stepped out onto the porch to find a gaggle of police officers in the front yard, pointing their guns at them. The man named Logan released what appeared to be claws out of the backs of his hands.

"Put the knives down…"

"I can't do that."

The gunshot, and Isabel and Rogue screamed as they crouched on the ground and a bullet hit his forehead . St. John did not make it any better when he struck his lighter and tried to burn the police officers to a crisp in the inferno he had created. It would have been a thousand times easier to cut off their air and let them faint, then run like hell. Rogue's quick thinking saved them; she unbuttoned the glove on her hand and touched St. John's skin, then used the power she siphoned from him to bring down the flames. Isabel let out a frightened cry when Logan stood up as though nothing had happened, as the bullet that had been in his head now rolled on the porch as though it had always been there.

"Come on!" Bobby ordered as the _Blackbird _landed, and she helped him support a groggy St. John as they boarded the plane.

"Isabel!" Storm cried out when she boarded the jet, and Isabel glanced triumphantly back at the man named Logan.

"I was telling the truth," she said with a crooked smile.

"Great," he answered as he buckled his seat belt. "Why don't you and Kurt the Chatterbox over there exchange stories about Europe while the rest of us try to figure out where to go from here?"

Isabel opened her mouth, then shut it quickly with a click of her teeth.

Honestly, where _had _they picked him up from?

----------

"The professor sent me a vision," Isabel told Jean as she sat close to her in the front. "And that's how I knew to come."

Jean nodded, keeping most of her attention to copiloting the plane. "Hopefully he and Scott are all right. Can you…"

"I've gotten nothing."

"I understand. I…I'm glad you're back, Isabel. We missed you." Jean glanced back at her with a smile on her lips.

"I missed you, too, all of you," Isabel replied softly. "But I _am_ curious about one thing: Where did you find that one, the one with the claws and the attitude?"

"Oh." Jean cleared her throat. "Him. Professor Xavier and I have been…helping him. It's only temporary. He actually brought Rogue with him. It's a long story."

"I'm sure." Isabel gazed at her sideways and squinted her eyes. Was that red she saw from Jean's aura? "Jean…"

"Isabel."

"Your colors. I saw red when you talked about him. Do you…"

"Not now, Bells. Later," Jean pleaded as a frown creased her forehead.

"Jean. Don't let your heart wander," Isabel said softly.

Jean ignored Isabel.

"You know, if he shaved and got a haircut, he wouldn't look so bad," Isabel remarked loftily.

Jean suppressed a laugh.

A laugh that turned into a gasp when they saw that they were being attacked by fighter jets as they neared the mansion.


End file.
